INDIANA  UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 


President  Bryan  V Commencement 

Address 

Delivered  June  23 , 1909 

1 

Entered  as  second-class  matter  May  16,  1908,  at  the  postoffice  at  Bloomington,  Indiana, 
under  act  of  Congress  of  July  16,  1894 

Indiana  University  comprises  the  following  schools: 

The  College  of  Liberal  Arts, 

The  Graduate  School, 

The  School  of  Law, 

The  School  of  Medicine, 

The  School  of  Education. 

For  circulars  or  other  information  concerning  any  of 
these,  address, 

The  Registrar,  Indiana  University, 

Bloomington,  Indiana. 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


VOL.  VII  BLOOMINGTON,  IND.,  JUNE  15,  1909  NO.  6 


Entered  as  second-class  matter  May  16,  1908,  at  the  postotfice  at  Bloomington, 
Indiana,  under  the  Act  of  July  16,  1894.  Published  from  the  University  office, 
Bloomington,  Indiana,  semi-monthly  April,  May,  and  June,  and  monthly  January, 
February,  March,  July,  September,  and  November. 


Commencement  Day  Address  to  the  Class 
of  1909 

By  President  WILLIAM  LOWE  BRYAN,  LL.  D. 


' But  this  one  thing  I do , forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind , and 
reaching  forth  unto  those  things  which  are  before , I press  toward  the  mark." — 
Thilippians,  iii,  13-14. 


I.  “ F or  getting  those  things  which  are  behind” 

Mercier  says  that  one  of  the  surest  marks  of  superiority 
is  power  to  forget.  Some  of  you  may  on  that  score  im- 
mediately claim  superiority.  Since,  perhaps,  most  of 
what  you  have  learned  in  fifteen  or  twenty  years’  schooling 
is  already  gone,  and  most  of  the  rest  ready  to  go.  But 
Mercier,  who  was  a distinguished  student  and  physician  of 
the  mind,  spoke  seriously.  In  point  of  fact,  all  things 
that  grow  come  up  by  a process  which  is  exactly  like  for- 
getting. The  higher  species  has  come  up  by  dropping,  all 
along  the  way,  characters  once  necessary,  and  then  neces- 


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INDIANA  UNIVERSITY 


sary  to  be  dropped.  Your  own  body  has  come  up — very 
swiftly  in  the  embryonic  period,  and  then  more  slowly  in 
infancy  and  youth — dropping  characters  that  belong  to 
the  past.  Human  society  has  come  up  a little  way  out  of 
savagery,  leaving  behind  a trail  of  beliefs  and  customs 
whose  end  is  to  be  forgotten.  This  is  the  kind  of  thing 
Mercier  meant,  when  he  said  that  the  superior  mind  has 
unusual  power  to  forget. 

The  truth  is,  we  are  all  full  of  things  that  a civilized 
man  is  better  without.  Let  me  give  three  illustrations. 

Almost  every  one  of  you  begins  his  life  occupation  with 
some  habits  of  work  which  are  slow,  ineffective,  and  waste- 
ful. You  have  mental  habits  analogous  to  the  child  trick 
of  counting  upon  your  fingers,  instead  of  using  the  far 
swifter  tables  of  the  arithmetic.  You  have  habits  analo- 
gous to  digging  out  sentences  with  a dictionary  and  gram- 
mar, instead  of  having  gained  free  power  to  read.  You 
have  habits  such  as  letting  part  of  your  mind  wander  at 
play,  while  the  rest  is  pretending  to  work.  You  have 
habits  such  as  working  with  the  hurry  and  bustle  of  ants, 
without  foresight,  without  plan.  If  you  have  such  habits 
of  work  as  these,  and  try  to  go  through  life  with  them, 
you  can  never  be  a master  workman.  You  may  labor  and 
sweat,  but  your  years  of  effort  will  leave  you  an  ineffective 
drudge.  I counsel  you  to  take  stock  of  your  bad  habits 
of  work,  and  be  rid  of  them. 

Second,  I counsel  you  to  seek  wisdom  in  the  matter  of 
changing  your  ideas.  Truth  is  eternal,  but  the  eternal 
truth  is  never  wholly  in  any  statement,  or  theory,  or  creed 
of  men.  Whenever  men  think  to  hold  the  complete  and 


COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS 


eternal  truth  safe  and  fast,  in  any  theory,  or  creed,  or  in- 
stitution, it  is  (as  Royce  suggests)  as  when  Christ  was 
sealed  and  guarded  in  a tomb.  The  tomb  is  broken  and  a 
voice  comes,  saying,  “He  is  not  here;  He  is  risen.”  There 
is  no  more  fundamental  wisdom  than  to  know  how  to  turn 
with  hope  from  the  grave  from  which  the  truth  has  broken. 

Third,  you  are  full  of  instincts  which  you  should  let  fall 
asleep.  You  are  crowded  with  instincts  which  come  from 
far  off  ancestors.  Those  instincts  rose  from  necessity. 
They  had,  perhaps,  their  day  of  use.  Many  of  them  are 
still  necessary.  Others  belong  to  the  past,  and  you  must 
not  wake  them  up.  These  are  literally  your  ghosts.  These 
are  literally  your  demons.  These  are  literally  the  unclean 
spirits  which  can  drive  you  to  madness.  It  is  easy  to  wake 
them  up.  Let  them  sleep  as  you  value  your  life. 

II.  “ Reaching  forth  unto  those  things  that  are  before .” 

Now,  there  is  a best  way  to  forget  any  of  these  things — 
ideas,  habits,  or  instincts.  The  way  to  forget  is  not  by 
trying  to  forget.  The  best  way  to  forget  anything  at  all 
is  to  think  with  all  your  might  of  something  else.  When- 
ever you  think  with  all  your  might  of  any  one  thing,  every- 
thing else  disappears,  unless  it  can  come  in  as  part  of  what 
you  are  thinking  about.  Whenever  you  think  of  anything 
with  all  your  might,  your  whole  soul  and  body,  heart  and 
lungs,  muscles,  ideas,  feelings,  all  obey, — all  work  to- 
gether in  obedience  to  the  dominant  idea.  Things  useful 
to  that  idea  come  in.  Things  useless  are  shut  out,  and  for 
the  time  forgotten.  And  so,  if  you  keep  on  thinking  with 


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INDIANA  UNIVERSITY 


all  your  might  about  anything,  if  for  days  and  for  years 
you  give  yourself  to  any  idea,  that  idea  makes  you  over. 
That  idea  sifts  you,  uses  you,  organizes  you,  and  what  it 
cannot  use  it  casts  away  into  oblivion.  Forgetting  of  every 
sort  is  a thing  that  takes  care  of  itself,  if  only  you  are  able 
to  think  with  all  your  might  of  something  else. 

III.  “/  press  toward  the  mark.9' 

But  if  this  is  so,  then  far  and  away  the  most  important 
concern  for  every  one  of  us  is  what  that  something  shall  be. 
Be  a money-maker  for  forty  years.  Day  in  and  day  out, 
waking  and  dreaming,  work  with  cold  intensity,  like  Bal- 
zac’s M.  Grandet,  to  make  thousands  and  to  save  the  price 
of  a candle  ; and  mark  the  result.  Such  a passion  will  kill 
out  of  you  the  habits  and  vices  which  are  of  a lower  level. 
But  also  it  will  kill  out  the  aspirations  and  possibilities  of 
higher  levels.  After  forty  years  of  such  a passion,  you 
have  the  soul  and  the  eyes  of  a rat.  Turn  instead  to  any 
great  occupation,  on  its  highest  level.  Find  one  of  its 
greatest  living  men,  and  become  his  disciple.  Get  sight  of 
his  great  idea.  Get  a sense  of  the  man  at  his  best.  See  how 
he  works.  How  he  makes  his  time  and  energy  count. 
Above  all  things,  see  what  the  man  at  his  best  is  trying  to 
do.  Fill  vour  mind  with  that.  Give  yourself  to  that. 
And  presently  the  great  world  values  to  which  your  master 
has  pointed  the  way,  will  have  filled  you,  will  have  cleansed 
you  from  lower  habits  and  ideas  and  instincts,  and  will 
have  lifted  you  into  the  wisdom  and  strength  of  a man. 

In  the  closing  pages  of  the  ‘Republic,’  Plato  has  a fa- 


COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS 


( 


mous  myth,  which  tells  how  a certain  man  by  the  name  of 
Er  went  to  the  other  world,  and  saw  the  souls  of  men  given 
a chance  to  come  back  to  this  world  and  to  choose  the  lives 
they  should  lead.  And  there  came  a prophet  who  said : 

“Hear  the  word  of  Lachesis,  daughter  of  Necessity: 
Mortal  souls,  behold  a new  cycle  of  life  and  mortality  ! 
Let  him  who  draws  the  first  lot  have  the  first  choice,  and  the 
life  that  he  chooses  shall  be  his  destiny.  Virtue  is  free, 
and  as  a man  honors  her  he  will  have  more  or  less  of  her. 
The  responsibility  is  with  the  loser.  God  is  justified.” 

And  then  Er  saw  the  multitude  come  forward,  and  choose 
their  new  lives.  The  first  man  chose  instantly  the  life  of  a 
king;  only  to  see  after  he  had  chosen  that  the  life  he  had 
chosen  was  fated  to  end  in  misery,  and  that  he  would  devour 
his  own  children.  So  the  people  crowded  up,  each  choos- 
ing a life — some  choosing  wisely;  some  choosing  foolishly, 
and  then  at  once  blaming  the  gods,  or  chance,  for  their  mis- 
erable fate. 

My  children,  I stand  today  where  Er  stood,  and  I see  you 
coming  up  to  the  knees  of  Lachesis  to  choose  your  lives. 
And  I repeat  to  you  the  word  of  the  prophet:  “The  life 
that  you  choose  shall  be  your  destiny.” 


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